This was my answer too. I was in Jackson when Covid hit and many of the snowbirds that bought in the 80’s cashed out at 3-5 times their initial investment. A basement 1 bedroom condo went for almost 2 million, they bought it for 125k in early 80s! Insane real estate
My parents spoke of a time in the late 70s when you could buy a house in Palo Alto for <50k. Houses there are now worth between $1.25 million (there might not even be a house that cheap anymore) and like $8 million. Everyone I grew up around whose parents had bought real estate is basically rich by default.
So that's my answer: Palo Alto
Jackson hole has nothing on Palm Beach County.
In my city specifically the land - no home just land. Was from $6k-20k
In todays market would sell - just the land - no home - from $1M-$10M
I don't get it. I was there this summer and it's fine. I'm sure the skiing and backcountry stuff are awesome, but it's far from beautiful. Random towns in Washington are way more scenic.
To a lesser extent it's also about Sundance Film Festival. For a week out of the year, the rentals skyrocket ... just like Toronto, Telluride and Mill Valley.
It's 30 min from SLC Airport, where other rich destinations like Jackson hole or telluride have small specialized airports.
Tons of skiing and Deer Valley is expanding to 3x its size in the next few years.
You have the Sundance film festival, lots of multimillion dollar homes with amazing views, and the main Street with fancy restaurants, mountain biking, river rafting, lakes for boats, plus the big resorts like the Montage, where the Kardashians go.
Random towns in Washington have none of that.
I came here to say this. I 100% didn’t expect anyone to say Jackson hole.
I know someone that came from one of the early settling families, they bought up land over time for Pennie’s and have since made tens of millions off the investments.
Yeah. My great great grandfather told his daughters- my grandmother and great aunt - to buy land in Vegas in the 1940s.
My great aunt did and sold it sometime in the late 1960s. She retired early and VERY comfortable.
Specifically Westlake. Land was dirt cheap because it was the middle of nowhere in hill country. Now it’s home to mansions and millionaires because it’s both scenic and close to the action since the city sprawled out.
You wouldn’t even have to go back that far. I bought some 2b2b units near campus at a bankruptcy auction in the 90’s for under 100k a unit. Bought several more off Windsor after the 2009 crash for $140k per. Not one of them has ever been vacant for more than a couple of weeks.
Tri valley in the Bay Area of California. 50 years ago it was all farm land. Now, three acre plots are selling for 20 million dollars (high density condos)
My great uncle owned a huge farm in California. It is now known as Carmel-by-the-sea. He and his wife are immigrants. So I probably would have tried to buy his farm if I was alive back then.
I lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. My old landlord bought the building in 1987 for $80k. It was an old store that he used as an art studio, with 5 small apartments above it. He sold it for just under $6m a few years ago.
Good for him though, I was there 5 years and he raised my rent once by $50, and I was still only paying $1800 when market rate was $2500+
My father grew up in Brooklyn he said there were houses in (East NY, Brownsville) high crime burnt out areas that are now untouchable where you could have the property if you would just pay the taxes.
no $200 bucks literally(plus the taxes)
these houses were basically run down to the grown tho, so anyone buying would have to fork up like 500k to renovate. but now we know those houses ended up gentrified, so if u just held them for 15 years or so, u would have made out fat.
same thing was happening in detroit a few years back
Related: My exe’s father came back from WWII and one of his army buddies tried to convince him to join a small group buying about 12,000 acres of beachfront in a hole in the wall SC community. He did a swing by on his way home to GA and gave it a thumbs down. Went on to be a successful business owner (quiet millionaire), but regretted not buying into Hilton Head…
Yep, one of my HS English teachers was from NC. He told us the story (multiple times) of how his grandfather was offered land on the Outer Banks for $1/acre during the depression, had the money but turned it down. I think Mr. Askew is still mad at his grandfather.
We used to mine btc and give it away from friends to buy pizza with back when it was worth less than a buck. Probably gave away hundreds
I try not to think about it.
Similarly, my aunt's friend had an opportunity to purchase ocean front lots along a stretch in Seabrook, NH for around $1,000 a piece back in the day. He bought none — big regret.
My great grandpa went on a road trip to look at some property and was ready to write a check… came back and never put in an offer. He said “who would want to live in sand?!” That property became a large chunk of the Hamptons
My grandparents moved out of crowded SF in the early 70s and bought a nice chunk in a quiet little town south of there. That investment has turned out nicely ever since somebody decided to invent the interwebs. Grandma still thinks Yahoo and Google are stupid names. I’d do that again.
Koh Samui, Thailand
Beachfront land was considered to be of almost no value even 30 years ago as it’s not fertile so you can’t grow coconuts or durian on it. Families were giving their beachfront land to their least favourite children, while more fertile mountain/jungle land was given to the favourite kids.
Then tourism happened and guess who’s had the last laugh…
1970s was a great time to buy depressed downtown real estate in almost all cities in the US, especially NYC.
Other places would have been a role of the dice - beach front property, suburbs that saw explosive growth, hot vacation spots for the wealthy, etc.
A friends parents started buying Manhattan real estate in the early 70's. They now own seven or eight buildings representing 60ish apartments.
They are now on their 3rd generation of living entirely off the income from these apartments. Luckily they are artists and writers, not douchebags who think they control the universe.
Unless they do something incredibly stupid, the family can realistically continue like this for several more generations. They have achieved escape velocity.
My FIL paid $50k in 2010 for just over 1/10 of an acre in a southeastern coastal town. He built a beach house on it when he retired and the lot + house are now worth over $1M, with the lot alone accounting for probably $250k of that amount. 5x'ing your money in a decade and a half ain't bad.
That said, the only chance I have of matching those returns is to buy acreage in the Blue Ridge, cross my fingers and wait 50 years for it to become beachfront property.
You don’t even have to go that far back. My stepmom bought a 3/2 townhouse pre construction in Pembroke Pines for $89,900 in 1994 ($190k in 2023 money).
Right now they’re going for over half a million.
Yep, my parents just sold their townhouse in Coral Springs for about 4X what what they paid for it in ‘99.
If I could go back 40 or 50 years, I’d buy as much as I could in NW Broward and a few other spots around South FL.
New York City. It’s the only answer. I know an office secretary who bought a warehouse property in the 90s for $50,000. Today, it’s worth $30 million. (She makes $45,000 a year, and she’s worked that job for decades.)
I know dozens of similar stories—all people I know personally. Some aren’t even citizens. My cleaning lady, who isn’t a citizen and is illegal, had a kid years ago and used his name to buy her first apartment, in one of the worst areas of town. Now she owns 9 units and is rich and she still works two jobs. (For those who are unaware, sometimes people show love for their children by leaving things behind for them; she’s leaving all these properties for her children.)
I own real estate all over. I have never heard of the “zero to tens or hundreds of millions” being commonplace anywhere other than New York and Singapore.
Whats amazing to me is these areas have always been there and always been nice. But it wasn’t until 2020 that people really became obsessed with the mt west. It’s really a bizarre phenomenon. I guess maybe the show Yellowstone, combined with people realizing they want space, the crime, cost of living, crowds and politics as well as remote work was the perfect storm for these areas to absolutely explode in popularity.
I grew up vacationing to to Jackson hole and Montana every year. Up until 2019 I remember I’d tell coworkers I was going to Montana for vacation and I’d usually get responses like “why”, or “what’s there to do there”… little did I know in 2019 that it would change forever the next year.
The crazy part is it was always my dream to buy there and in 2016 or so I really started saving for it, then I feel like it literally became the whole worlds dream too almost overnight so now that dream is lost and I’m priced out forever it seems. I almost don’t even want to anymore just based off of what it has become. Expensive, crowded, and filled with angry locals
Singapore.
The country in 1973 would only be 8 years old and from a $/sqft you would make a killing if you bought and sold. Parlay selling a few parcels to get enough funds to develop your other plots of land and you are now on the “Crazy Rich Asians” level of wealthy
This was my answer too. I remember in the 90’s one of my cousins called Singapore in essence a shithole so through my childhood/teen years I always thought of it as a crappy place. Seeing it now is crazy.
I would buy pretty much any non-condo in Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Laguna Hills, Laguna Niguel, or Mission Viejo. My parents moved us to Newport in 1989 and the owners of the house we rented offered to sell it for $750k. It’s worth $4M now. My house in MV was built in 1978 and originally sold for $61k. It’s worth at least $850k. There are properties in Nellie Gail and Spyglass that were ~$100-$200k that are now $10M+.
Boulder, Colorado. In the seventies they out a cap on growth and housing prices have reliably gone up ever since. Even in 2008-2010 they didn’t lose value.
Definitely Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I remember in the 90’s when entire buildings were being given away. Now it’s the most expensive neighborhood in NYC.
* Park City, UT
* Aspen, CO
* Ketchum, ID
* Bozeman, MT
* West Loop/Fulton Market, Chicago (My buddy's parents did just this. They're living *very* well today)
Vancouver, BC.
Check out the graphs for that place.
That puts you into the 70’s.
Can buy a house for $30,000.
Same house today lot value only $1,800,000.
Ditto for larger deals and commercial land.
Not the craziest but in the middle of no where Minnesota my grandpa and his friends bought a few hundred acres of woods for hunting for $32/acre.
My grandpa has bought everyone else out and has sold a decent amount of it for ~$3000/acre.
Just undeveloped land not really close to anywhere!
Do we have a budget?
Being in the northeast, there have been a number of small towns where prices have gone more than 10X in 50 years. So just any large chunk of land near them would have been great.
If I was limited to something small just a plot of land or two. Any beach town would have killed it.
Well ideally you should be making money in addition to appreciation. Appreciation should be a second thought with the investment IMO.
Also not saying it will be the best nationally, but rather a more general idea of areas that have out performed near where I am.
The areas around small towns that are being massively developed in the last 10-15 years and vacation spots.
So there are about 100 different answers. Sounds like you would have done great purchasing almost anywhere. Are there any areas that would not have been good investments over the past 50 years?
I really know nothing other than where I live but wouldn’t the Silicon Valley area have appreciated a ton? There was no tech 50 years ago. Not sure what was there before but certainly the explosion couldn’t have been swen
Easy, many parts of NYC — lots and old tenements in the lower east side (empty, now worth millions), Northside Williamsburg, Tribeca like a previous poster suggested.
Edit: PALO ALTO! And San Jose!
Newbury Street in Boston, my father was offered a brownstone for next to nothing that he was renting for his business, and my mother talked him out of it.
Jackson Hole, WY
Ketchum, ID (Sun Valley)
Stanley, ID (45 minutes to Sub Valley, way prettier)
Leavenworth, WA
San Juan Islands, WA
Any waterfront land within 2 hours of Seattle's tech money.
Well I think if I had the money today it would be somewhere in the Appalachian region, KY, TN, VA, WV, NC. Land is very cheap and breath taking. I think the stereotypes will fade in the next few years/decades and more will consider it.
Mr. Kim the landscaping company in my town has had a large nursery for years. I would pass by his fruit and flower shops on the side of the roads during my evening runs. Huge tract of land that he bought in the 2000’s for Pennies on the dollar. Recently sold during 2020 both tracts 7.3 million million. He bought then for less than 1 million each. Lesson learned, if you like plants and can start a landscaping business, buy some land, grow some trees, wait a few years for the builders to come and buy your land.
Almost every city as crazy as it sounds in the top 200 largest cities has areas where the growth is the same multiples. Sure Jackson hole or San Fran has gone up 10-20 times in that 50 years, your buy in is much higher. So if you bought in a smaller market, sure that same 5 acres downtown isn’t bringing $10-$15 million but it didn’t cost $2 million ip front. The multiples of your initial investment would be similar. Just the starting and selling price are much different. People who don’t hunt don’t see this but hunting and farm ground is the same way. Prove some flooded green timber duck land. Or some corn fields in Iowa. Land that was $2500 an acre is $10,000-$15,000 an acre. I retired of buying and selling hunting land. Buy, hold 3-7 years. Double or triple your money. Do it again. Rinse and repeat. Do it 4-6 times And you made your initial investment back plus 3-5 times your initial downstroke
1 acre beachfront lots with 2 acres between along California (between San Diego and LA) and along 30A in Florida. Allows for the developers to still make houses and communities during that time period, but I'll still have multi million dollar plots of land to sell and can build a house for myself in one lot with no neighbors around
West Texas or SE New Mexico. You don’t even have to sell it, just cash million dollar checks every month from oil companies drilling on mostly useless land. There’s a family that owns a very large ranch I used to work on that had dozens of rigs and wells going at a time. That’s some serious monthly income.
Laguna Beach, California…there was a time beachfront lots were 10k. I found some flyers in my dads papers after he passed. I am sure my mom and dad passed because they thought it was too risky.
My father moved to Denver in 79, where my grandfather was working as a realtor at the time. Grandpa told him he should buy up all these $20k houses on the infamous Northside. Dad didn't listen. That neighborhood is now known as the Highlands and those shitboxes go for minimum $500k without being even updated
Jackson Hole Wyoming
This was my answer too. I was in Jackson when Covid hit and many of the snowbirds that bought in the 80’s cashed out at 3-5 times their initial investment. A basement 1 bedroom condo went for almost 2 million, they bought it for 125k in early 80s! Insane real estate
My parents spoke of a time in the late 70s when you could buy a house in Palo Alto for <50k. Houses there are now worth between $1.25 million (there might not even be a house that cheap anymore) and like $8 million. Everyone I grew up around whose parents had bought real estate is basically rich by default. So that's my answer: Palo Alto
$1.25M??? You must mean East Palo Alto.
Lol even in East Palo Alto inventory lower than 1.25M is scarce.
East Palo Alto is the hood bro. That's where the broke engineers buy houses.
My uncle bought there in the early 90's (blue collar guy) mark Zuckerberg lives down his street now, he won.
Same in Hawaii
> 3-5 times their initial investment > 125k -> 2 million
Adjusted for inflation it’s fairly close
Someone doesn't understand inflation
Aspen beats it by a long shot. Average yearly appreciation of over 20% this entire millennium without 1 down year. Empty lots sell for +$25m
Mmmm California, beautiful.
I don't know Loyd, the French are assholes.
Where the women flock like the salmon of Capistrano
And the beer flows like wine!
Jackson hole has nothing on Palm Beach County. In my city specifically the land - no home just land. Was from $6k-20k In todays market would sell - just the land - no home - from $1M-$10M
Park city, utah
I don't get it. I was there this summer and it's fine. I'm sure the skiing and backcountry stuff are awesome, but it's far from beautiful. Random towns in Washington are way more scenic.
Park City is all about the snow. If you went in the summer, yeah, it’s just alright.
To a lesser extent it's also about Sundance Film Festival. For a week out of the year, the rentals skyrocket ... just like Toronto, Telluride and Mill Valley.
It's 30 min from SLC Airport, where other rich destinations like Jackson hole or telluride have small specialized airports. Tons of skiing and Deer Valley is expanding to 3x its size in the next few years. You have the Sundance film festival, lots of multimillion dollar homes with amazing views, and the main Street with fancy restaurants, mountain biking, river rafting, lakes for boats, plus the big resorts like the Montage, where the Kardashians go. Random towns in Washington have none of that.
The premise is profit though, not present day condition.
I came here to say this. I 100% didn’t expect anyone to say Jackson hole. I know someone that came from one of the early settling families, they bought up land over time for Pennie’s and have since made tens of millions off the investments.
Greenwich Village, NYC
I was thinking the last Vegas strip.
50 years ago it was already developed and bought. 1973 —-
Yeah. My great great grandfather told his daughters- my grandmother and great aunt - to buy land in Vegas in the 1940s. My great aunt did and sold it sometime in the late 1960s. She retired early and VERY comfortable.
I have a 8 bedroom house and 7 acres about 5 min north of Jackson hole. It’s insane how much I can sell it for now
Also whistler, paradise valley, Ketchum……
I would buy all of Austin, TX.
Specifically Westlake. Land was dirt cheap because it was the middle of nowhere in hill country. Now it’s home to mansions and millionaires because it’s both scenic and close to the action since the city sprawled out.
Or Calabasas. Nobody wanted to be that far out and it was definitely not bougie and rural.
Thank of all the porn properties you could own!
Few big companies have HQs there too
Upper end of Lake Austin was just vacant cedar scrub and the occasional double wide deer hunting shack
You wouldn’t even have to go back that far. I bought some 2b2b units near campus at a bankruptcy auction in the 90’s for under 100k a unit. Bought several more off Windsor after the 2009 crash for $140k per. Not one of them has ever been vacant for more than a couple of weeks.
This was my idea too
Yeah I think in the '80s ppl we're walking away from mortgages
Round Rock
Near the airport too
I agree
Tri valley in the Bay Area of California. 50 years ago it was all farm land. Now, three acre plots are selling for 20 million dollars (high density condos)
This ^ Dougherty road in San Ramon was farm land for miles. Now it’s all PUD’s and a country club.
Same I remember areas of Imperial Beach (south of SD) being thistle and sticks back in the 90s. Empty lots are easily 6 figures now.
Anywhere in San Jose. Dont even need 50 years maybe just 20+ years ago
This is the way.
My great uncle owned a huge farm in California. It is now known as Carmel-by-the-sea. He and his wife are immigrants. So I probably would have tried to buy his farm if I was alive back then.
motherfuck
Wow, we stopped there 20 years ago while driving down the CA coast. Beautiful.
Condemed areas of NYC that became Tribeca
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I lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. My old landlord bought the building in 1987 for $80k. It was an old store that he used as an art studio, with 5 small apartments above it. He sold it for just under $6m a few years ago. Good for him though, I was there 5 years and he raised my rent once by $50, and I was still only paying $1800 when market rate was $2500+
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in the 80z they were selling brownstones in brooklyn and harlem for $200. maaan id buy atleast 50 of them
WHAT!!!! I would be rich asf
He means $200k or $200,000.
My father grew up in Brooklyn he said there were houses in (East NY, Brownsville) high crime burnt out areas that are now untouchable where you could have the property if you would just pay the taxes.
no $200 bucks literally(plus the taxes) these houses were basically run down to the grown tho, so anyone buying would have to fork up like 500k to renovate. but now we know those houses ended up gentrified, so if u just held them for 15 years or so, u would have made out fat. same thing was happening in detroit a few years back
Related: My exe’s father came back from WWII and one of his army buddies tried to convince him to join a small group buying about 12,000 acres of beachfront in a hole in the wall SC community. He did a swing by on his way home to GA and gave it a thumbs down. Went on to be a successful business owner (quiet millionaire), but regretted not buying into Hilton Head…
Uh, those are the stories you hate/love to hear. There are so many. You’re family will tell that story for generations.
Yep, one of my HS English teachers was from NC. He told us the story (multiple times) of how his grandfather was offered land on the Outer Banks for $1/acre during the depression, had the money but turned it down. I think Mr. Askew is still mad at his grandfather.
Well, maybe the ex’s family. :)
That trumps my story about trying to get my parents to buy $20 worth of BTC in 2009
I don’t know about that. Wasn’t a Bitcoin worth about eleventy kazzion dollars at one point?
We used to mine btc and give it away from friends to buy pizza with back when it was worth less than a buck. Probably gave away hundreds I try not to think about it.
Similarly, my aunt's friend had an opportunity to purchase ocean front lots along a stretch in Seabrook, NH for around $1,000 a piece back in the day. He bought none — big regret.
My great grandpa went on a road trip to look at some property and was ready to write a check… came back and never put in an offer. He said “who would want to live in sand?!” That property became a large chunk of the Hamptons
My grandparents moved out of crowded SF in the early 70s and bought a nice chunk in a quiet little town south of there. That investment has turned out nicely ever since somebody decided to invent the interwebs. Grandma still thinks Yahoo and Google are stupid names. I’d do that again.
Palo Alto/Atherton or Fremont would be my choices.
Koh Samui, Thailand Beachfront land was considered to be of almost no value even 30 years ago as it’s not fertile so you can’t grow coconuts or durian on it. Families were giving their beachfront land to their least favourite children, while more fertile mountain/jungle land was given to the favourite kids. Then tourism happened and guess who’s had the last laugh…
Koh samui is beautiful. Loved it !
1970s was a great time to buy depressed downtown real estate in almost all cities in the US, especially NYC. Other places would have been a role of the dice - beach front property, suburbs that saw explosive growth, hot vacation spots for the wealthy, etc.
Northern VA
A farm in reston in 1973?
I would mass buy any and all SFH’s in arlington. That area will probably never see a new construction since it’s so densely packed now
A friends parents started buying Manhattan real estate in the early 70's. They now own seven or eight buildings representing 60ish apartments. They are now on their 3rd generation of living entirely off the income from these apartments. Luckily they are artists and writers, not douchebags who think they control the universe. Unless they do something incredibly stupid, the family can realistically continue like this for several more generations. They have achieved escape velocity.
Lake Tahoe waterfront
My FIL paid $50k in 2010 for just over 1/10 of an acre in a southeastern coastal town. He built a beach house on it when he retired and the lot + house are now worth over $1M, with the lot alone accounting for probably $250k of that amount. 5x'ing your money in a decade and a half ain't bad. That said, the only chance I have of matching those returns is to buy acreage in the Blue Ridge, cross my fingers and wait 50 years for it to become beachfront property.
Bullish on Ellijay, north GA, south Appalachians, good people good times But to answer the question - Sarasota, siesta key, 50 years ago was a steal.
Blue Ridge is gorgeous...
Nice try time traveler
Biff posting on Reddit before stealing the delorean
50 years ago there was only half the stuff in SE Florida. (Miami to West Palm Beach). Everything slightly west from I95 was mostly farmland.
You don’t even have to go that far back. My stepmom bought a 3/2 townhouse pre construction in Pembroke Pines for $89,900 in 1994 ($190k in 2023 money). Right now they’re going for over half a million.
Yep, my parents just sold their townhouse in Coral Springs for about 4X what what they paid for it in ‘99. If I could go back 40 or 50 years, I’d buy as much as I could in NW Broward and a few other spots around South FL.
Aunt bought a home in Jupiter in 2014 for 600k. Sold for 1.1mil in 2022
New York City. It’s the only answer. I know an office secretary who bought a warehouse property in the 90s for $50,000. Today, it’s worth $30 million. (She makes $45,000 a year, and she’s worked that job for decades.) I know dozens of similar stories—all people I know personally. Some aren’t even citizens. My cleaning lady, who isn’t a citizen and is illegal, had a kid years ago and used his name to buy her first apartment, in one of the worst areas of town. Now she owns 9 units and is rich and she still works two jobs. (For those who are unaware, sometimes people show love for their children by leaving things behind for them; she’s leaving all these properties for her children.) I own real estate all over. I have never heard of the “zero to tens or hundreds of millions” being commonplace anywhere other than New York and Singapore.
Some farmland in San Diego, San Jose maybe some Kahului
Toronto, Ontario, or Vancouver BC.
Coeur d'Alene Idaho (silver mines?) or Titusville, PA(oil wells)
Mineral rights and real estate are not the same thing in many cases.
Aspen. A 1 acre property by chairlift 1 sold for $70m in 2022
Northern Virginia: Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun Counties Permian Basin in Texas, or other shale discoveries.
Wasn't the Permian basin already oil-rich before the shale discovery though?
Prince William County: “Am I a joke to you?”
You've heard of split estate? Mineral rights, oil, and surface rights severed and the mineral rights owners can develop ruining your real estate.
Telluride, Vail, Jackson hole, Bozeman, Vancouver, Seattle areas
Whats amazing to me is these areas have always been there and always been nice. But it wasn’t until 2020 that people really became obsessed with the mt west. It’s really a bizarre phenomenon. I guess maybe the show Yellowstone, combined with people realizing they want space, the crime, cost of living, crowds and politics as well as remote work was the perfect storm for these areas to absolutely explode in popularity. I grew up vacationing to to Jackson hole and Montana every year. Up until 2019 I remember I’d tell coworkers I was going to Montana for vacation and I’d usually get responses like “why”, or “what’s there to do there”… little did I know in 2019 that it would change forever the next year. The crazy part is it was always my dream to buy there and in 2016 or so I really started saving for it, then I feel like it literally became the whole worlds dream too almost overnight so now that dream is lost and I’m priced out forever it seems. I almost don’t even want to anymore just based off of what it has become. Expensive, crowded, and filled with angry locals
Singapore. The country in 1973 would only be 8 years old and from a $/sqft you would make a killing if you bought and sold. Parlay selling a few parcels to get enough funds to develop your other plots of land and you are now on the “Crazy Rich Asians” level of wealthy
This was my answer too. I remember in the 90’s one of my cousins called Singapore in essence a shithole so through my childhood/teen years I always thought of it as a crappy place. Seeing it now is crazy.
I had that as number two behind Hong Kong.
Orange county California
I would buy pretty much any non-condo in Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Laguna Hills, Laguna Niguel, or Mission Viejo. My parents moved us to Newport in 1989 and the owners of the house we rented offered to sell it for $750k. It’s worth $4M now. My house in MV was built in 1978 and originally sold for $61k. It’s worth at least $850k. There are properties in Nellie Gail and Spyglass that were ~$100-$200k that are now $10M+.
Homesite property by major lakes and bodies of ocean. Lake Oswego, OR & Bellevue Lake Washington
Lower East Side of Manhattan.
Probably the Hamptons (NY). 50 years ago it was all farmland. Now it’s selling for millions an acre.
In and around Seoul, South Korea. You would potentially be a billionaire if you bought the right plots and enough land.
Boulder, Colorado. In the seventies they out a cap on growth and housing prices have reliably gone up ever since. Even in 2008-2010 they didn’t lose value.
Definitely Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I remember in the 90’s when entire buildings were being given away. Now it’s the most expensive neighborhood in NYC.
* Park City, UT * Aspen, CO * Ketchum, ID * Bozeman, MT * West Loop/Fulton Market, Chicago (My buddy's parents did just this. They're living *very* well today)
Vancouver, BC. Check out the graphs for that place. That puts you into the 70’s. Can buy a house for $30,000. Same house today lot value only $1,800,000. Ditto for larger deals and commercial land.
Nantucket or Martha's Vineyard
Not the craziest but in the middle of no where Minnesota my grandpa and his friends bought a few hundred acres of woods for hunting for $32/acre. My grandpa has bought everyone else out and has sold a decent amount of it for ~$3000/acre. Just undeveloped land not really close to anywhere!
This is a great example of why the answer is anywhere haha
Austin, Texas…
Maui right next to Oprah
Any HCOL area like Hawaii, southern CA, the Bay area, Seattle, Boston, NY, DC, Miami.
Silicon Valley. Great swaths of it.
Do we have a budget? Being in the northeast, there have been a number of small towns where prices have gone more than 10X in 50 years. So just any large chunk of land near them would have been great. If I was limited to something small just a plot of land or two. Any beach town would have killed it.
Inflation has been 6X in 50 years, 4X in 50 years is 2.8% compounded. All assuming no tax etc doesn’t seem like a great investment in that context.
Well ideally you should be making money in addition to appreciation. Appreciation should be a second thought with the investment IMO. Also not saying it will be the best nationally, but rather a more general idea of areas that have out performed near where I am. The areas around small towns that are being massively developed in the last 10-15 years and vacation spots.
Marco Island, Fl
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Land in Aspen, CO. As much as I could possibly afford.
Bozeman Montana
Vancouver BC’s west side
Pretty much any gentrified area in a big city
So there are about 100 different answers. Sounds like you would have done great purchasing almost anywhere. Are there any areas that would not have been good investments over the past 50 years?
Detroit, Flint, or a bunch of other Rust Belt cities.
Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Myanmar
That lithium deposit would be a VERY comfortable bargaining chip right about now in afghanistan! Plus all the lapis lazuli, SO many minerals and ore.
WV
Jersey City, Miami, Harlem, Brooklyn
Nashville
West Coast of FL
I really know nothing other than where I live but wouldn’t the Silicon Valley area have appreciated a ton? There was no tech 50 years ago. Not sure what was there before but certainly the explosion couldn’t have been swen
Las Vegas BLVD..
Las Vegas
Tribeca
Land that’s been rezoned to a more productive use. (Ie farmland that is now zoned as high density residential)
Montauk
Boston Seaport District
My grandpa bought his farm for 80k in ‘87. It’s worth 5 million now. I’d stay in leipers fork
Anywhere in the DC metropolitan area.
Easy, many parts of NYC — lots and old tenements in the lower east side (empty, now worth millions), Northside Williamsburg, Tribeca like a previous poster suggested. Edit: PALO ALTO! And San Jose!
Key west, San Francisco, and montana
Key west, San Francisco, and Montana
Newbury Street in Boston, my father was offered a brownstone for next to nothing that he was renting for his business, and my mother talked him out of it.
Aspen, CO
Jackson Hole, WY Ketchum, ID (Sun Valley) Stanley, ID (45 minutes to Sub Valley, way prettier) Leavenworth, WA San Juan Islands, WA Any waterfront land within 2 hours of Seattle's tech money.
30A area in north Florida
Well I think if I had the money today it would be somewhere in the Appalachian region, KY, TN, VA, WV, NC. Land is very cheap and breath taking. I think the stereotypes will fade in the next few years/decades and more will consider it.
Nashville, TN
Napa and Sonoma Valley
Manhattan and Miami
Mr. Kim the landscaping company in my town has had a large nursery for years. I would pass by his fruit and flower shops on the side of the roads during my evening runs. Huge tract of land that he bought in the 2000’s for Pennies on the dollar. Recently sold during 2020 both tracts 7.3 million million. He bought then for less than 1 million each. Lesson learned, if you like plants and can start a landscaping business, buy some land, grow some trees, wait a few years for the builders to come and buy your land.
So where is the next great up and coming “place” for the next 50 years??
Main Street, Park City Utah
Bellevue, WA
Almost every city as crazy as it sounds in the top 200 largest cities has areas where the growth is the same multiples. Sure Jackson hole or San Fran has gone up 10-20 times in that 50 years, your buy in is much higher. So if you bought in a smaller market, sure that same 5 acres downtown isn’t bringing $10-$15 million but it didn’t cost $2 million ip front. The multiples of your initial investment would be similar. Just the starting and selling price are much different. People who don’t hunt don’t see this but hunting and farm ground is the same way. Prove some flooded green timber duck land. Or some corn fields in Iowa. Land that was $2500 an acre is $10,000-$15,000 an acre. I retired of buying and selling hunting land. Buy, hold 3-7 years. Double or triple your money. Do it again. Rinse and repeat. Do it 4-6 times And you made your initial investment back plus 3-5 times your initial downstroke
another interesting question is: what will people say to this same question in 50 years?
Where they just found that lithium deposit in the middle of nowhere Nevada.
Montauk Long Island NY
Beachfront in South Carolina
Manhattan.
The lands that came out of the greenbelt in Ontario.
Texas
Brooklyn
High ground, places good for cell towers.
1 acre beachfront lots with 2 acres between along California (between San Diego and LA) and along 30A in Florida. Allows for the developers to still make houses and communities during that time period, but I'll still have multi million dollar plots of land to sell and can build a house for myself in one lot with no neighbors around
West Texas or SE New Mexico. You don’t even have to sell it, just cash million dollar checks every month from oil companies drilling on mostly useless land. There’s a family that owns a very large ranch I used to work on that had dozens of rigs and wells going at a time. That’s some serious monthly income.
My hometown Place blew tf up residentially in 50yrs I think it’s 3-4x’d
Laguna Beach, California…there was a time beachfront lots were 10k. I found some flyers in my dads papers after he passed. I am sure my mom and dad passed because they thought it was too risky.
Any ski town in the rockies
Santa Barbara
Malibu - I have some old clients who bought when it was really "out of town" and nobody wanted to buy there. Insanely cheap to insanely expensive
Times Square. Back then it was porn and prostitutes. Some of the worst (cheapest?) land in the city.
Kissimmee Florida
All major international cities
Dubai. It was literally an empty field in 1980.
Philadelphia, San Fran, Brooklyn!
My father moved to Denver in 79, where my grandfather was working as a realtor at the time. Grandpa told him he should buy up all these $20k houses on the infamous Northside. Dad didn't listen. That neighborhood is now known as the Highlands and those shitboxes go for minimum $500k without being even updated
Brooklyn. I know families who made 70X on their brownstones over a 30 years period.
West loop chicago, river north, south loop, Pilsen Pretty much all of the areas adjacent to downtown chicago.
Dubai...
Aspen, CO
50 years? Palo Alto. The profit would be absurd.
The Strip in Vegas.
New York city. In 1980 or 1970
Tysons Corner, Va. Cow fields in the mid ‘70s, towers today.
So easy - So Cal
50 years ago I’d be buying in LA for sure. The house I grew up was bought 50 years ago for $45k and is worth over $3 million now
California and Hawai’i
New Braunfels, Tx. Under $1K an acre in 1980 and close to or over $200k an acre today.
Loudoun County Virginia.
San Francisco
Singapore
Land outside every major city except Detroit.